1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to apparatus, systems, and methods for producing materials used to fill voids in containers and packages.
2. Description of Related Art
Flexible sheet material is often used to produce cushioning material for use in containers and packages, such as boxes and cargo containers (hereinafter collectively called “containers”), for protecting or cushioning products stored therein. The sheet material is often provided in substantially planar form, and can be fed into a machine that processes the sheet material to form it into a cushioning material. The cushioning material can be a non-uniform, non-planar expanded structure of the sheet material. The cushioning material is expanded from its original structural form, in the sense that it occupies a larger volume than the planar sheet material. The cushioning material can have resiliency and load bearing strength in its expanded form. Cushioning material of this type is often referred to as “dunnage” in the relevant field.
A typical machine and process for creating the cushioning material can involve using a stock roll of sheet material, such as, for instance, kraft paper in rolled form. The sheet material can comprise multiple layers, with the multiple layers strengthening the resulting cushioning material. The sheet material can then be fed directly from the roll into forming members to crumple the sheet material and generate cushioning material.
It has been observed by the inventors hereof that various dunnage machines available on the market are large and burdensome to handle and many suffer from impaired efficiency due to design.
Also, it is noted that “kraft” paper is the most widely used base material for making crumpled cushion material for in-the-box packaging applications. For different packaging needs, paper of different base weights are used to provide different degrees of cushioning effect. Generally, light loading needs lighter paper and vice versa. 50 to 100 GSM Kraft paper in roll form is the normal weight range acceptable as industry standard. Many of the cushioning paper conversion machines (or dunnage machines) available on the market presently are designed for use with Kraft papers. Papers other than the Kraft paper usually cannot stand the very demanding strength exerted on the paper while being pulled through the most dunnage machines. However, presently, companies using cushioning material are requesting more variety in cushioning material to meet different diverse demands.
Finally, is it noted that dunnage machines comprising manually operated cutters or automated cutters can sometimes be dangerous to the operator or can cause fatigue.